RC Diocese of Argyll & the Isles

The last words in today’s  Gospel, “things both old and new”, could be applied to this old township of Gearraidhfluich, where we are celebrating this special Mass today, and the more modern township of West Gerinish, which is celebrating the 100^th anniversary of its establishment. One interesting fact about this older place and the reason for celebrating Mass here is that it had one of the earliest post-reformation Catholic chapels in South Uist. It wouldn’t have been a very grand building in the style of the churches built in the 19^th century starting with St. Michael’s, Ardkenneth, but it was the place where the people of this area gathered to worship God and to celebrate the Mass through much of the 18^th century and into the 19^th century. We are honouring its role then in being the place where the worship of the Catholic Church continued to be practised in difficult times, and in doing so we hope also to gain some inspiration and encouragement for our practice of the Catholic faith today.

As you know Fr Michael has done research on the priests who have served in South Uist and one of those he has written about is the priest who lived and celebrated Mass here in Gearraidhfluich during a good part of the 1700s, namely Fr Alexander Forrester. He arrived here in 1732, a convert to Catholicism, and recently ordained a priest in the Scots College in Rome – he was given patronage by the local tacksman, MacDonald of Gearraidhfluich, and ministered to the people through much of South Uist and Benbecula, at times on his own and sometimes with the assistance of another priest. His life and his priestly ministry were severely disrupted by the repression after the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745, and although he was not a Jacobite sympathiser he was arrested and taken to the prison ships at Tilbury on the Thames, along with a number of other Catholic and also Episcopalian priests. He was sentenced to perpetual banishment from Britain, and having sought refuge in the Scots College in Paris for a couple of years was brave enough to attempt to return to Scotland and to South Uist to minister again to the people of these islands. He couldn’t stay in 1748 because of the presence of Red-coat troops and went to Ireland until it was safe to come back home. He seems to have eventually got back to Gearraidhfluich in 1760, just in time to experience a more local persecution of Catholics by MacDonald of Boisdale. Although not in great health after the travails he had undergone he served the people here for another 20 years and died in 1780, recognised as a saintly man, whose memory was greatly cherished. He was a man who had found the pearl of great value, the kingdom of heaven, and having given up everything to bring it to others as a Catholic priest had served his Lord faithfully through every difficulty and had indeed contributed so importantly to the protection and growth of the Catholic Church in South Uist and Benbecula in troubled times. Others have succeeded him, down to the present day – in fact since his time there has probably been the continuous presence of a Catholic priest in the north end of South Uist, so the faithful have a lot to be grateful for as we honour the memory of Fr Forrester and his successors in the Eucharist this afternoon.

The people were eventually cleared from the area of Gearraidhfluich as it became part of Drimore Farm, but the successor township of West Gerinish came to life 100 years ago as another farm was broken up crofts to provide for the local people. West Gerinish has been a busy place over these 100 years, and much of its activity will be well covered in the lectures given this week. It is worth recalling here though the Church’s presence in the township – the celebration of the Mass in the School in the early days, the great endeavour to erect the Statue of Our Lady of the Isles when Father John Morrison was Parish Priest, and then the building of the Church dedicated to St. Bride in the time of Fr Morrison’s successor, Fr John MacLean. In the new township therefore the Church  has a prominent place also ( a very convenient location also involving little travel to get to Mass for the local people). One memory I have myself is that when we discovered the wooden floor of St. Bride’s was rotting and in fact was so dangerous that we would need to close the Church until it was replaced the local people worked together immediately to put in the new concrete floor – I think we missed having Mass there one Sunday such was the desire to have the regular Sunday Mass in the township. There was a spirit, and hopefully still is, a spirit of faithfulness and commitment to the Church and a regular participation in the Church’s worship, particularly the Mass, and that practice goes back to the previous generations and their little church here at Gearraidhfluich.

 The sense of continuity of worship and Christian living through the centuries, right back to the apostles, and then to the Celtic monks  who brought the Christian faith to these islands, is something we need to hold on to, particularly perhaps in our age when life has changed a lot. We are more comfortable than the people of the past, have more possessions, can travel around a lot more, but we still have to attend to the question as to what is the real treasure or the finest pearl, which we would give up everything else for. The people of the more distant past who had to suffer hardship and some persecution for their faith, and then those of more recent times who gave the Church such a prominent place in the life of West Gerinish, help us to understand that our faith in Christ and the practice of that faith in the Catholic tradition is the real treasure and finest pearl, the gift of God’s grace alive in us through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has brought us to salvation and promised us a share in his glory as his adopted sons and daughters. Listen again to St. Paul’s beautiful words today:

“We know that by turning everything to their good, God cooperates with all those who love him, with all those he has called according to his purpose. They are the ones he chose specially long ago and intended to become true images of his Son, so that the Son might be the eldest of many brethren. He called those he intended for this; those he called he justified, and with those he justified he shared his glory.”

One of the traits of modern living seems to be a tendency to become easily discontented, and a consequence of this is a negativity towards things which appeared to be very good in the past but apparently are not so worthwhile now.  We have suffered some this in the Church – people find fault, complain, want things to change, are not happy with what changes, stop practising, justify themselves because we are always right anyway. It is interesting to contrast this approach with Paul’s understanding of the gift of faith and the blessings it confers – we have been chosen by God to become true images of his Son, Jesus. We have been justified not be our deeds and “supposed goodness” but by Jesus, who died to save us. In doing so he shares his glory with us  through our communion with him here on earth and in the hope of eternal glory with Him in heaven. We have a lot more to be grateful for than to be moaning or disappointed about, and a lot more reason to honour and respect our faith than to confine it to the dustbin and disregard it as irrelevant for today’s supposed more knowledgeable and sophisticated times.

Going back to Old Testament times we heard how Solomon was commended for asking God for the wisdom to discern between good and evil so that he could rule as a wise and able king – the true pearl for him was the gift of God’s wisdom rather than any personal splendour or exaggerated belief in his own abilities. Being able to be who we really are before God, in humility and wisdom, is the gift we all need in this regard – with this we have the ability to open our hearts to his grace and allow his goodness to transform us into true and faithful sons and daughters of Jesus Christ. A very old and wise message, therefore, coming alive in the people of the Old Testament but given its full substance and truth for human living in the coming of Jesus Christ.  People subsequently chose to believe in Him as the Saviour and to participate in the worship of the true God in his Body the Church.

Although old the message of salvation in Jesus Christ is also new because Christ needs to be proclaimed anew in every age, so that each generation hears the Good News and lives it in their time. This is what we are doing today  - we come to hear the Gospel proclaimed, to celebrate the mystery of the Lord’s death and resurrection in the sacrifice of the Mass, and to receive the fruit of this sacrifice  in his Body and Blood in Holy Communion. It is the ancient holy ritual coming from the Last Supper itself, but made present and real for us today. We should recognise also some of the advantages gained in recent times in our celebration of the Eucharist – of using our own languages, of listening more extensively to Sacred Scripture, and of receiving the Blood of Christ when we come to Holy Communion. We are a Church committed to the present as well as appreciating and honouring the past, and we wish to help the people of today retain a firm faith, a  strong sense of being saved by Christ, and retain their identity as a privileged people called to participate in his holy mysteries in the Church’s Liturgy. In celebrating this Mass today, with its resonances from the past, we pledge ourselves to living and honouring our faith in the present as we renew our own commitment to the Lord in his Body, the Church.

We have gathered here also under the Statue of Our lady of the Isles on Rueval. The image of Mary seemingly presenting the Christ Child to the world is an image also of the Church’s mission through the centuries. Being members of Christ’s Body we have the task of passing Him on, showing Him to others through our individual lives and Christian witness, and as Church, the people of God who show Christ alive among us, guided by his Spirit in all the good we do, by our faithful ness to his teachings, and in the hope we offer humanity, especially in the face of suffering and death. We seek Our Lady’s intercession as we strive to be faithful to the mission given us in South Uist today – may she keep us close to Christ and alive in the Spirit. May her motherly care extend to all who are suffering at this time, especially the drought victims in East Africa and the people of Norway, who have been visited by such tragedy in recent days. May all whose lives are shattered find hope and consolation in the Christian faith, and may all the departed rest in God’s peace.